An Information centric network (ICN) is a network that allows applications to bind to application-centric identifiers (IDs) exposed to the network layer entity (where the ID can represent any content, device, service, etc.), rather than to bind with one specific form of naming like an internet protocol (IP) address that represents physical location where that data is to be retrieved from, named hosts. In an ICN, packets are exchanged based on the name of the content or data. A content-centric network (CCN) or named data network (NDN) is an example implementation of the ICN that permits fetching data identified by a given name.
One aspect of the ICN that may be different from traditional Internet Protocol (IP) networks is the ability of the ICN r to interconnect multiple geographical points and cache content temporarily so that content can be served from the network instead of an original server. Mobile devices which connect to ICNs may do so at a Point of Attachment (PoA), which may themselves include content caches. Mobile devices will connect and disconnect from various PoAs in the network as they move. Generally, interests expressed by a mobile device at one PoA must be re-expressed at a new PoA to which that device has moved in order to have the named content delivered to the device at the new PoA.